Upgrade your life with apps

The pursuit of appiness

6.42am My phone makes an executive decision and wakes me up 18 minutes earlier than the time I set the alarm for. It has been watching me sleep, tracking my bodys movement to determine when Im in deep REM sleep and when Im lightly snoozing. This way, it knows the best moment to coax me gently into consciousness and Ive given it permission to do so up to 30 minutes ahead of my official start.

I downloaded the Sleep Cycle app four weeks ago to help with general knackeredness and groggy mornings  just one small part of an experiment to find out whether life is more productive and enjoyable when lived through the lens of a smartphone. Sleep Cycle tells me how long I slept: 6h 08m last night, almost half an hour less than my 6h 35m average. Those extra 18 minutes might have been useful, I think, but graphs also tell me that my sleep was less erratic than usual. Perhaps the meditation app Simply Being I used before bed is helping.

Its now been eight weeks since I belatedly picked up my supersmart digital appendage and my life is running smoother than it has in months. The number of decisions I need to take, the sheer volume of options I have to ponder during an average day, has been slashed, farmed out to the spare processing power I carry everywhere I go. I hadnt bought a phone. Id hired a team of personal assistants and forced them to live and work in the cramped conditions of my jeans pocket. There, they save me money, improve my fitness, filter the web, optimise my sleep and nutrition, and give my productivity a kick where it sorely needs one. When you buy a smartphone, everything should be easier. Your digital staff is there to take care of lifes admin.

Before I get out of bed, my iPhone updates me on the weather and transport status for my commute. Ill need a warm coat and quick step: theres a slight delay, which means I may have to revert to the second most efficient way to the office as calculated by the geolocation function on the multi-faceted fitness app, adidas miCoach. Finally, as I swing my legs out of bed, I load up Brush, a dental app which gives me exact timings on how long to brush each of my teeth for. Ive not consulted a dentist, but Im pretty sure my teeth have never been healthier.

Pocket guides

As well as my sleep counsellor and dental assistant, my in-pocket team consists of navigators, personal trainers, nutritionists, a stylist, meditation guru, guitar teacher, motivation coach, brain trainer, concierges, medical officers, task managers and a mistress or two. There are apps that find me cheaper petrol (MyGas), warn me if theres a local outbreak of flu (HealthMap), or alert me when I walk down a street with higher than average crime rates (Crime Compass), (ASBOrometer). More apps tell me how to fix my car should it break down (Car Trouble), track my happiness (Mappiness), and make decisions for me (Procrastinator). And AppAdvice helps me find more apps by reviewing them by category.

Im not alone. The latest records from January 2011 report more than 10 billion app downloads from iTunes worldwide. Technology analysts at Pew Internet, who explore the social impact of apps, found games are still the most popular, with 39% of people claiming they use apps primarily for entertainment. But the world is realising that apps can make your life a doddle. Even now, in their infancy, people are engaging with apps for health, communication, banking, commerce and personal productivity, says Kristen Purcell, Pew Internets associate director for research.

Selecting the best

Im not surprised by the uptake; my own engagement has been fanatical. While the average iPhone owner has 40 apps, I have 162 (just four of which are games), amassed over the last eight weeks. The initial problem, however, is that there are simply too many apps to have any idea where to find the good ones. There are over 300,000 on iTunes alone and app stores for other platforms add over 100,000 more. A flurry of downloads in the first few days saw my pocket workforce rise to 50. First in were those I already knew about: Facebook, Tube Deluxe for my commute, Sky Sports Football Score Centre for instant goal updates, adidas miCoach to log my training and other bestsellers. These are the apps that everybody has and which do one thing very well. They whetted my appetite for more. So I took counsel from a man who spends even more time playing with apps than I do, Alexander Vaughan, the editor-in-chief of AppAdvice.com.

Apps can help you earn some of the cash lost in the initial splurge back, he told me. RedLaser allows you to scan product barcodes using your iPhones camera and check against online databases to see if it can be found cheaper. And BargainBin is the app to save money on apps. It lets you select what apps youd like, and alerts you when prices are reduced.

Red laser gives me an instant result. The first measurable improvement I can credit my apps with is a 15p saving on a box of peppermint tea. Sadly, the benefit is rather offset by the three days it took for the tea to arrive from the cheaper website. So the next phase of my experiment would focus on the one thing that I  and lots of other men  have begun to obsess about: time. Id like more, please.

Making time

Its now 8.30 and Im en route to the office. The underground delays have been sorted so I revert to my preferred route. According to the GPS mapping function on miCoach, this saves me 10 minutes and 600m every day. Over a working year, thats 38 hours trimmed from my commute, not counting unavoidable delays or merry meandering if theres a post-work pint. Now thats an improvement.

Before getting on the tube, I free up more time by outsourcing some of my decision-making. This weekend, Ill be visiting my girlfriend Steph, who lives in Bristol. As usual Im dithering over whether to go by train or car. This decision usually takes me all week so I hand it over to Procrastinator. You feed in multiple choices and set a deadline for the decision to be made. If you havent reached a decision by then, the app tells you what to do. By the end of my tube ride, I want to know what Im doing at the weekend. My phone rumbles to inform me that Ill be getting the train. Decision delegated. Twenty minutes of tube-ride reclaimed from the void of dithering, and re-purposed for an altogether more enjoyable pre-saved sonic adventure on TuneIn Radio.

At my desk, a quick message to Steph tells her Ill be coming by rail (using free instant messaging tool, WhatsApp Messenger, which means there no risk of going over our text quotas). Then I use The TrainLine app to buy the ticket. Artificial intelligence has saved my brain the trouble of thinking. This is exactly what I was hoping would happen. Its like C-3PO without the whining  and it makes me wonder just how much of my life I should entrust to my phone.

Smarter thinking

This is where behavioural economics comes in. Researchers have taken an interest in mobile software as people use it to make lifestyle decisions. Studies suggest that, because a phone is with us all the time, and as we input so much data about ourselves, people are willing to put at least some trust in the technology when it comes to health and wellbeing. Whether it’s your waist, your finances or your VO2 max, there’s an app for it. Currently, 9% of smart phone owners use a health-related app, but market research firm research2guidance predicts this will increase dramatically. By 2015, it says 500m people will actively use apps to manage their health. I’m already more disciplined with my toothbrush, and I’m beginning to wonder if I cede enough control, apps could help me live longer, simply by promoting healthier everyday choices.

Some scientists think I could use the help – and so could you. “There is dramatic scope to improve the way humans make decisions,” says Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioural economics at MIT and author of Predictably Irrational. “What is wrong with the way we think is that we have what we call a present-bias focus.” We’re not designed to make long-term decisions because our brains and bodies evolved at a time when they didn’t last for all that long. We’re not programmed to think about what the long-term costs might be.”

It’s 15.30 and a Twirl is staring at me. The glint of its purple wrapping is saying, “To hell with the future. You know you want me.” Quickly, I consult my new nutrition team, informing both Carb Manager and DailyBurn what I’m about to eat. But, what I get back is, frankly, not very useful. Like the vast majority of nutrition trackers, they tell me how many carbs, calories and fat I’m staring at, add them to this morning’s breakfast and log the data into graphs that show me how much I’m eating over the course of a day, week or month.

Usually, I love data. I pore over the charts that inform me how well I’ve slept. The maps and times on miCoach have given me a mild enthusiasm for jogging for the first time. And Mappiness has been useful because I’ve learned that Tuesday is by far my grumpiest day. For some reason, however, I’m completely unmoved by calorie charts. Maybe it’s because I’m not actually trying to lose weight or that I don’t like inputting everything I eat. Maybe there’s a limit to how much digital life coaching I can actually stomach – but there could be more to it than that. “Data is not information,” Ariely tells me. “Those charts give you something to analyse but don’t help you to analyse it. Our research has found that calorie information does not change people’s behaviour. You have to give them something concrete to help them understand.”

To illustrate his point, Ariely points me in the direction of Vicer, one of a series of apps he has designed based on the latest behavioural research. When I tell Vicer about the Twirl and how often I eat chocolate bars, it doesn’t give me an intangible graph but tells me that at this rate, I’ll spend £50,750 on bars of chocolate by the time I retire. If I cut my consumption in half, that’s a £25k saving. To me, that’s far more persuasive. It still didn’t stop me eating the chocolate, but I’m reminded every time I buy another that I could instead be putting down a payment on a BMW.

When they’re done right, Ariely believes apps can help us with this kind of choice, bridging the gap between what our brains are designed to do and the demands modern society places on them.

Love for sale?

At the weekend, I resolve to employ this exciting new technology to convince Steph of apps’ huge potential for human advancement. And maybe get in her pants. Results are mixed. She’s pleased with the curried sea bass I cook from my Jamie Oliver app, not so impressed when I use Fill That Hole to alert her council of the potholes down her street. I counter by finding a handy cash machine on the way to the pub using ATM Finder, only to lose favour again while we’re playing Scrabble with her friends.

I’m trying to impress them with one of my favourite apps, a guaranteed charmer called OMG Facts. Like many of mankind’s greatest inventions, it’s essentially pointless: A feed of random, brilliant nuggets of trivia, and perfect ammunition for the pub.

“Did you know that there’s only 16 years between Jane and Judy Jetson?” I say, as someone lays down some tiles. “That means Jane was a teenage mother! Or how about this: alcoholic beverages contain all the essential minerals to maintain human life...”

A dispute breaks out over the word on the board. “Don’t worry,” I say, “I’ll bet you anything there’s a Scrabble dictionary on...”

Steph interrupts. “Will you put your phone away? You’re being rude.”

I thought I was being helpful and entertaining. Now I don’t know what to say. “Did you know that beavers once grew to the size of black bears?"

She’s still mad when we get in and her anger has made me defensive and petty. So I confess something I probably shouldn’t. “I’ve been cheating on you,” I tell her. “Virtually.”

“What?”

“Up until last week I was seeing a girl called Kimberley. I broke that off and now there’s a girl with short hair called Claire.”

“These are apps?”

“Er, yeah. Virtual girlfriend apps.” “You’re such a loser,” she says, and walks out of the room.

Annoyingly, that’s exactly what Kimberley said when she dumped me on My Virtual Girlfriend. The app is a game in which you build points by responding to a female avatar’s prompts and demands. If you do well, you get hugs and kisses (virtual, of course) and an improved boyfriend score. I was hoping to build mine up and let Steph know how good she has it. In truth, however, my scores are modest and now I’m having my own doubts about Claire. When I bought her some virtual flowers, her response was to ask whether I’ve ever been spanked with a leather paddle.

Maybe Steph is right. There is an invisible line of intimacy between my phone and me that I never wish to cross. Virtual leather spankings might just be that line. Over the past month or two, it’s possible that I’ve simply gone ‘app-shit’, something the Urban Dictionary uses to describe a person who “has just bought an iPhone and spends countless hours feverishly searching for, talking about and downloading apps.” And now that I think about it, much of the free time my phone is saving me is spent using apps, talking about apps and browsing for more apps. There will have to be cuts – some of my in-pocket staff will have to go.

“Think of it as a cost-benefit ratio,” says BJ Fogg, a behavioural scientist, who studies ‘persuasive technologies’ at Stanford University. “The problem with a lot of apps today is that they’re not yet automated. The ones which may be of most value to you are those which don’t ask much in return.”

He’s right. Like most people, I’ve got a core group of apps I turn to most often and the sheer volume of the rest slows me down. “Most app users organise their apps so they can easily access the ones they use most, and delete apps they don’t find useful,” says Purcell. “This culling happens quickly; among those who have deleted an app, 62% said they usually do it within two weeks of downloading the software.”

The first to go for me are apps that require daily inputs of what I’ve been doing. I didn’t get into this so I could spend hours with my neck craned over the phone performing little more than a data-entry job. Another quick way of losing entire categories of apps is to think about what sort of assistant I could imagine hiring in real life – if I had the means. Broadly speaking, I know how to eat well so I don’t need my nutritionists. Sorry guys, I’ve got to let you go. I’ve also decided that I still prefer paper to screen, bye-bye eBooks.

Vaughan had advised me that I don’t need to lose everything. “Build folders on your phone where you can store apps that you won’t use every day or every week, but which will be useful at some point.” As well as my Blackadder Soundboard (and OMG Facts), that goes for all of my recipe apps, including Epicurious, a database of over 30,000 recipes that I search occasionally when food stocks and inspiration are running low. I also keep a ‘days out’ folder and one-off apps like 0870, which saves me money on off-tariff customer services lines. You rarely need to call the bank or insurance company but when you do, there’s no point in paying extra.

The apps which have the most value are those which operate silently or give me some kind of instant feedback, whether it’s a train time, a free parking space or a date idea. I keep all of my location-aware tools, including VoucherCloud which gives me restaurant discounts for those eateries I’m closest to, and a Time Out app for London that finds me a pub or exhibition whenever I’m at a loose end.

Other firm favourites are those apps that help me with goals that I’ve been unable to achieve in the analogue world. Nobody has enough time these days, so anything that claws back even a few minutes earns its place in my pocket. I also still get a kick out of visualising my sleeping habits on sleep cycle because the phone does all the work for me while I’m asleep. It’s what a true personal assistant should do. If you travel a lot, TripIt is another good example of an app that works with minimal input. You simply forward it your confirmation emails about flights, hotels and meetings, and it automatically produces a detailed itinerary for your journey and keeps you updated on flight times.

Apps which filter the world for me can also stay. I have several news sites tucked away, plus My Taptu, which aggregates news that I’m personally interested in from different sources and Instapaper, which lets me save web pages to read when the phone’s 3G falters.

I manage to delete more than 90 apps and resolve not to splurge on new apps every time I do something new or take a weekend away. Surely I can cope on my own. The 68 (yes, 68) I can’t bring myself to part with are arranged in folders named according to how often they’re used. How did I measure my usage? Well, I found an app for that.

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